Opinion: The Trans Sports Attacks Were Never About Sports

Attacks on transgender participation in sports was never about sports, and always about getting people comfortable with discriminating against transgender people.

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In the wake of Kamala Harris’s loss in the 2024 election, a debate has emerged among political pundits, a small handful of Congress members, and advocacy organizations: Should Democrats abandon “the sports issue” when it comes to transgender people? The question isn’t entirely unfounded—Democrats in key swing states were pummeled with a torrent of anti-transgender ads, many focusing on sports when targeting Democratic senators or on incarcerated transgender individuals when targeting Harris directly. But the conclusion that Democrats should “give up on sports” is deeply misguided. It overlooks the larger strategy of the anti-trans right: It was never about sports—sports bans are a calculated part of the GOP’s broader agenda to push transgender people out of public life entirely.

If you’d taken a time machine from 2019 to 2024, the dramatic shift in the debate over transgender rights in the United States would be nothing short of shocking. In the halcyon days of 2019, transgender people could access care without significant hurdles, and transgender youth and their families lived thriving, happy lives in states like Texas, Alabama, and Florida. Fast forward to today, and these places have become battlegrounds for the few transgender people who remain. Some towns offer bounties for reporting transgender individuals in bathrooms deemed “inappropriate,” child protective services target parents of trans youth, adults are cut off from vital medical care, and trans teachers are routinely fired simply for using titles like “Ms.” or “Mr.” if a parent objects. And not everybody has survived the battles fought there.

How did this happen? I’ve spent years covering anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and watched as the anti-trans right carefully crafted a strategy to use sports as a Trojan horse for a broader agenda of oppression. Sports were never the real issue—they’ve always been a way to get the foot in the door, to normalize placing an asterisk on the gender identity of transgender people. The notion that Democrats can “accept” sports bans to appease those who wish us gone, or to prevent future anti-trans laws, is both naïve and dangerous. It concedes far more than a few trans kids playing soccer; it legitimizes the idea that transgender people are unequal under the law, creating the very framework the far right uses to fuel further attacks. In state after state, sports bans have been the first domino, laying the groundwork for the horrors inflicted by Republican legislatures. This isn’t compromise—it’s capitulation, and it’s a strategy that has already devastated transgender lives in 25 states.

If our hypothetical time traveler went back to 2019, they’d witness the debut of the modern anti-trans movement’s very first ad. Titled “Track,” the ad was produced by the Campaign for American Principles, now rebranded as the American Principles Project. It depicted girl athletes running on a track field, only to be overtaken by a boy, and was used—unsuccessfully—to target Andy Beshear in Kentucky. Though the ad failed to achieve its immediate goal—Beshear won—the strategy stuck. Over the next two years, a handful of states passed bans on transgender participation in sports, setting the stage for the flood of anti-trans legislation we see today.

You can view that ad here:

Terry Schilling, who leads the American Principles Project, laid bare the true intent behind the ads in a CNN interview—they were never just about sports. The “sports issue,” he explained, was merely a gateway to making broader anti-trans policies more acceptable to both policymakers and the public. “The women’s sports issue was really the beginning point in helping expose all this because what it did was, it got opponents of the LGBT movement comfortable with talking about transgender issue,” said Schilling, confirming that the bans were never about sports but rather about setting the stage for a larger fear campaign that continues to grip the Republican Party.

Schilling’s strategy worked. By the end of 2022, 18 Republican-controlled states had passed bans on transgender sports participation. In many of these states, Republican “moderates” supported the sports bans while rejecting gender-affirming care bans and other anti-trans legislation, operating under the belief that compromising on sports discrimination would halt further attacks. For a time, this seemed to hold—gender-affirming care bans failed in states like Texas, and even Republican governors vetoed such bills.

But by the end of 2023, the reality was clear: every state that passed a transgender sports ban went on to enact some of the most draconian anti-trans laws in history. These included bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth, laws prohibiting drag and shutting down Pride parades, bathroom bans, restrictions forcing trans teachers to go by incorrect pronouns, and even measures to deny transgender people accurate driver’s licenses and birth certificates. Over 1,000 anti-trans bills were introduced nationwide. Far from “easing” the pressure on transgender people and their allies, the sports bans ignited a wildfire, emboldening lawmakers to escalate their attacks.

That’s because accepting transgender bans in sports means accepting a Republican framework explicitly designed to justify further eradication efforts. If transgender people are deemed “dangerous” on a soccer field, why wouldn’t they also be considered “dangerous” in a bathroom? If sports bans require invasive medical checks to determine someone’s assigned sex at birth, wouldn’t that logic also support bans on updating driver’s licenses and IDs? If being transgender results in widespread pain—caused by the very laws targeting us—does that not feed into the argument that allowing teenagers to transition is “not in their best interest,” thus justifying bans on care? And if trans girls are denied Title IX protections in sports participation, protections afforded to all other girls, does that not erode the many other ways Title IX safeguards them—against harassment, in bathrooms, and in equal educational opportunities? These bans aren’t isolated—they’re part of a calculated strategy to chip away at transgender rights until there’s nothing left.

Conceding to anti-trans sports bans has not shielded Democratic candidates from further attacks. In Ohio, despite the passage of such bans prior to the election, Republicans launched ads against Senator Sherrod Brown, alleging support for "men in girls' bathrooms," indicating that they were moving on to the next attack line even before the election concluded. Brown responded disavowing that he ever supported such things. Similarly, in Texas, Representative Colin Allred stated he did not support "boys in girls' sports," doing the very thing some pundits have argued would shield them from such attacks. Both lost. Notably, these ads targeted senators for their votes on H.R. 5, the Equality Act, which aims to extend civil rights protections to include gender identity and sexual orientation. This underscores that the ultimate objective of those advocating for sports bans is to deny civil rights protections for transgender individuals altogether.

In one of the states where Democrats arguably capitulated the most on transgender rights—with 16 Democrats voting in favor of or “present” on a transgender sports ban, allowing it to pass—the Democratic candidate for governor lost, and Republicans gained seats in both the House and Senate, and they have named forced outing of trans students as their next priority. Meanwhile, in Montana, where Democrats fought back fiercely against anti-trans legislation, they gained 10 seats in the House—their largest gain in the past 30 years. Capitulation failed, and fighting succeeded.

Representative Seth Moulton, a Democrat, has made headlines for expressing fears that his two daughters might be “run over on a playing field” by a trans girl athlete. In doing so, he referred to such athletes as “males,” misgendering them. In a recent CNN interview, Moulton argued that Democrats “should engage in these conversations, figure it out… and can win on this, settling it in a reasonable way” by how they address the issue. He’s right that Democrats can win on this by engaging thoughtfully. However, he fails his constituents by not demonstrating that approach himself.

There are reasonable conversations to be had about hormone therapy requirements for transgender athletes and how levels should be monitored—debates that have existed for decades and apply not only to transgender athletes but also to cisgender athletes with atypical chromosomes or hormone levels. That, however, is not what sports bans accomplish. These bans are blunt instruments, barring transgender athletes from participating in everything from disc golf, fishing, billiards, and even chess. Worse, their enforcement leads to cisgender kids being accused of being transgender, subjected to invasive medical tests, and scrutinized due to complaints from angry parents. This is not the thoughtful discussion Moulton and others are practicing, however. When they call for “discussion,” what they are really asking for is permission to abandon their transgender constituents entirely.

The far-right understands this strategy well and knows exactly how to execute it. When I first mentioned the chess bans, Riley Gaines—the anti-trans swimmer Republicans have relied on to target transgender teens in sports—proudly claimed credit for helping implement the international chess ban. “I worked alongside leadership to make sure of it,” she stated. “Women’s opportunities are meant for women, full stop. Men shouldn’t be in women’s category in chess, pool, or any sport,” making it clear these bans are not about “reasonable solutions.” Similarly, prominent anti-trans activist Helen Joyce openly confirmed that sports bans are just a gateway to a larger agenda of eradication. “This is right,” she said when confronted with the broader implications. “There isn’t a compromise between fact & fiction, true & false. It’s a proof by contradiction: sport is the most obvious absurdity that leads people to work back & reject the initial false premise that a man can somehow ‘really be’ a woman in any situation at all.”

Many Democrats realize the folly of giving in to anti-trans campaigners. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear wrote just a few days ago in the New York Times that Democrats should not throw LGBTQ+ people under the bus, and that it would not work. Instead, he offered better advice to democrats: lead on your values, stating, “I have vetoed numerous anti-L.G.B.T.Q. and anti-choice bills, yet I still beat Mr. Trump’s handpicked candidate last fall. That happened because even if some voters might have disagreed with the vetoes, they knew the next day I would be announcing new jobs, opening a new health clinic or finishing a new road that would cut 20 minutes off their commute…Earning trust and showing people you care about them also requires that we talk to people like normal human beings. And that we are not afraid to share our “why.” For me, my why is my faith, and I share it proudly. I vetoed anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation last year because I believe all children are children of God. And whether people agree with my decision, they know why I’m making it.”

When representatives like Seth Moulton and Tom Suozzi call for “a discussion” about transgender people, they should start by listening to the voices of transgender people—the very constituents whose lives are on the line. Sacrificing transgender individuals, their families, and their allies for political expediency is not a winning strategy; it’s a betrayal. History has made it clear: there is no compromise with those who seek erasure. Concessions do not slow their agenda—they accelerate it. You cannot negotiate a middle ground with eradication, and pretending otherwise only fuels the fire.